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Here's a quick run down of what the tutorial is showing you.
<a href="showprod.html?id.value='prod1'">Product 1</a>
then, on showprod.html
mySearch = location.search.substr(1)
that splits the location up so that now mysearch is "id.value='prod1'"
then, they say
eval("document.formName.inputName."+mySearch);
that's interpretted as:
document.formName.inputName.id.value='prod1'
Then, you have that information stored in the form, which could be hidden or a real input box.

Code:

You are focusing too much on the trees to see the forest. In other words, don't read the wsabstract piece as though it were the bible; look at it as if it were an example (which it is).
The only important thing the article teaches is: the search property. That is:
mySearch = location.search;
where the value returned is the entire link string. Everything else (substr, split) is just additional processing. So...
If you want to send the same number and type of variables each time, you can send just one string and then use the split() method to extract each individual one.
<body>
<p><a href="showprod.htm?data="dog.gif|dog|120.00">prod 1</a></p>
<p><a href="showprod.htm?data="frog.gif|frog|10.00">prod 2</a></p>
<p><a href="showprod.htm?data="space.gif|nothing|876.00"> prod 3</a></p>
</body>
function getFromSearch()
{
mySearch = location.search.substr(1).split("|");
document.image.src = mySearch[0];
document.myform.prod.value = mySearch[1])
document.myform.price.value = mySearch[2])
}
Or:
function getFromSearch()
{
mySearch = location.search.substr(1).split("|");
document.image.src = mySearch[0];
for (x = 0 ; x < document.myform.length; x++)
document.myform.elements[x].value = mySearch[x])
}
Vinny

Code:

You can place everything you need within an array (you can put it in a *.js file). For example,
var myData= new Array();
myData[0] = "dog.gif|40|60|dog|120.00";
myData[1] = "frog.gif|40|80|frog|10.00";
myData[2] = "space.gif|140|80|frog|nothing|876.00";
You would send the index number of the array
<p><a href="showprod.htm?0">prod 1</a></p>
...etc...
you can then get the information with:
mySearch = myData[location.search.substr(1)].split("|");
Vinny

Code:

here's how the code should work:
mySearch = location.search.substr(1);
//takes the stuff after the question mark - would be ra20
mySearch = mySearch.substring(3);
//takes mySearch, goes over 3 letters and takes the info from there - would be 0
mySearch = eval(myData[mySearch]);
//takes the information recieved above and takes that number and inserts it there to get the array value - would be myData[0] , but then, it would evaluate it;thus taking the data from myData[0]
mySearch = mySearch.split("&");
//splits that data into an array
now, using layers, you could dynamically write this stuff. For instance, you could have (take a look here: http://members.aol.com/grassblad/dHTML/dHTML1.html):
<div id="myLayer" style="position:absolute;top:775px;left:150px;visibility:hidden">Picture goes here</div>
then, in your code, you could have:
var txt='<img src="'+mySearch[0]+'" width="'+mySearch[1]+'" height="'+mySearch[2]+'" border="0">';
if (document.layers){
document.layers['myLayer'].document.open();
document.layers['myLayer'].document.write(txt);
document.layers['myLayer'].document.close();
document.layers['myLayer'].visibility = 'show';
} else{
document.all.myLayer.innerHTML = txt;
document.all['myLayer'].style.visibility = 'visible';
}
And you could write to all your info to layers, like that.

I do reccomend reading the whole topic if you want a grasp on it, but that info should help some.